Technology moves at such a rate that what was considered cutting edge just a few years ago is now achievable for a much lower price. While Sony and Bose used to have a stranglehold on the noise-cancelling arena, the technology has now reached a maturity that means other manufacturers can put out comparable products for a third of the prestige brands’ price – and they too have pushed it down to their more budget offerings. Enter the OneOdio A10.
This is a smart-looking pair of headphones. The black plastic headband boasts a subdued, dark-grey OneOdio logo, from there leading down to a pair of metallic blue earcups, with a glossy ridged circle at the centre. Picked out with a single metal ring, they look and feel like there’s a miniature vinyl record attached to your ear, and while that sounds intrusive, they’re distinctive and retain an old-school charm into the bargain.
Those ridges are an absolute dust magnet though, so you’ll want to make sure that you use the included hard case when they’re not on your noggin. That said, cleaning them proved to be surprisingly easy, and a quick wipe with a cloth brought them back to their sparkling best.
At 295 grams, they’re right in the middle of the pack in terms of weight, and they feel robust enough to stand up to long term use, but light enough not to cause you discomfort during long listening sessions. Comfort levels are increased by the seriously plush ear cushions and a good thick strip of memory foam on the underside of the headband. I’m always wary of manufacturers who push the limits of how much cushioning is needed on the top of your head, and OneOdio have avoided that amply.
The outside edge of the left earcup plays host to the USB-C charging socket and the ANC toggle. With both ANC and a Bluetooth connection the A10 manages a very healthy 40 hours of battery life, and charging was very quick too, with 15 minutes of charge giving around two hours of listening. On the right-hand earcup you then have the rest of the core controls, with power and volume sitting next to a 3.5mm socket for wired use. As with the majority of budget releases, you can’t use the wired connection while the headset is powered up, so that means no ANC for you. It’s a continuing bugbear if you do even just occasional travelling on planes and like to hook into the onboard entertainment, and one of the few key downsides to the headset.
The volume buttons are separated by the power button sitting between them, and while that could have been confusing OneOdio have given the power button a serious ridged texture that you can’t mistake for either of the other two buttons. It’s also a weirdly cool texture, and I found myself strangely drawn to it each time I picked the headphones up.
It’s all about the audio here though, and the OneOdio A10 might just be the best budget ANC headset yet, with a wide soundstage, plenty of detail to the mids and highs and a pleasing amount of depth to the bass notes. I’ve been listening to the new twenty one pilots track ‘Overcompensate’ on repeat since it was released and via the A10 the rumbling bass line amply fills your ears while the repetitive vocals from Tyler Joseph cut through with enough clarity to pick out every word.
Shifting across to Bad Omens ‘The Death of Peace of Mind’ and it’s clear just how much detail the A10 delivers, and the vocals glisten above the chugging guitars and synth riffs. When the groove drops the expansive soundstage really helps to deliver a great listening experience, and one that puts you at the centre of it. The 40mm drivers performance is excellent, and this is when it’s being fed standard AAC audio. The A10 is also rated for Hi-Res audio, so if you’ve got the correct kit and a service like Tidal or Amazon, you can hear details in these tracks that just aren’t apparent otherwise. The fact that it is available on the A10 when headsets like the Bose 700 aren’t rated for it is wild.
The hybrid ANC cuts out the majority of background noise, especially if you’ve got music playing, though it’s not the otherworldly quiet of the Bose or Sony headsets. The transparency mode is quite remarkable though, and there’s genuinely no difference to sitting with the A10 on and not at all. If you utilise transparency a lot for staying in contact with people around you or to stay aware of your surroundings, the A10 is one of the best I’ve tested. The A10 does, somewhat randomly, allow you to use the ANC and transparency without being connected to your phone, but other than some shiny earmuffs, I can’t really see the benefit here.
If we’re looking for where the corners have been cut to reach its £90 pricetag, you can probably point to the microphone response for calls, which is patently average and a little thin. It’s absolutely servicable, but if you spend your days taking calls and holding Zoom meetings it’s a small mark against an otherwise stellar headset. Besides that, the 3.5mm wired mode is for listening only, so this isn’t suitable for an Xbox chat party, while PS5 players will have to fallback to the built-in microphone of the DualSense. We can only hope that OneOdio add these little touches to their next budget headset.